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Notícies :: mitjans i manipulació |
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The Euronews scandal
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per Force Ouvrière |
03 des 2016
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Within the last weeks and months, the feeling of disillusion and the doubts about euronews' future have been growing in the newsroom. We've been historically a channel conceived with a mission of public service, bringing to millions of our viewers a European approach to information and values of the European Union. |
Over last couple of years we've been going through a series of difficulties which are partially caused by global changes on the news market, as well as by bad management's choices. Now, we are also experiencing a deep crisis of the European project itself. In this context, it's important to remind that euronews has been one of the most ambitious projects that Europe has ever developed. Aside with the Erasmus' exchange program and the CERN program, that brings people from all over Europe to study, to live and to work together, we remain a unique tool which deeply contributes to shape a European identity.
A large part of the employees that really believes in this project think that the management's choices over the last years has gone in the wrong direction. Instead of looking at the European institutions and European Member States to find economic and financial solutions, instead of working to create a stronger European identity for our TV channel defining our unique profile and niche on the market, we've been turning to private investors, placing our small company in a saturated market with no means to be competitive on it. We've been constantly changing the brand's style and "habillage" of the channel as if moving from "EuroNews" to "euronews" or having a brand-new building was an editorial strategy itself.
As far as financial management is concerned, our management is promising to "double the advertising revenue" in the project Next, without specifying the means for such a breakthrough. Meanwhile the company considerably increased monthly spending on the brand- new building and spent a huge amount of money on its construction and moving in there from the old headquarters. These expenditures were followed by selling 53% of the shares of the company to a private investor, which undermines the editorial independence of euronews.The arrival in 2015 of a new majority shareholder, a private business man from a non-European country has been the clearest example of the mismanagement our company suffers of. A lack of efforts and strategic choices to save the Ukrainian service go in the same direction. And now, the idea of saving our TV channel with the help of a big American actor in the news market, makes us feel that the management doesn’t know where we are going. Euronews was created after the Gulf War in 1992 to counterbalance the American global vision projected by CNN. What will remain of that original idea if euronews becomes a subsidiary of the NBC in Europe?
Another example of poor strategic choices is management's decision regarding Arabic and Farsi languages which today represent a crucial importance for Europe. Indeed, the management has decided to stop broadcasting of Arabic and Farsi services and to keep them on the web-site only. As the only independent 24/7 news channel in Farsi, euronews Persian has been very successful and has attracted a large audience in Iran and Afghanistan. Considering the problems of Internet connection and systematic Internet censorship in Iran, the decision to take the service off air is a real suicide, which was even admitted by the management during the meeting with the Persian team.
A similar misleading approach concerns the «Next» project as it has been described until now, with plenty of improvisation and amateurism. In fact, «Next» has been presented in a too blurry way, giving the impression that it was just a manner of «selling» the product to our new majority shareholder. The only clear point now is the idea of having English as the forefront language of our channel. Again: it's a very sensitive choice, to say the least, considering that the news market doesn't seem to need another English news channel. Therefore, we will try to compete with giants in this field, while remaining a small-budget news TV channel.
Last but not least, in recent days more concerns have risen, following controversial information published in the media about a dodgy structure of the Holding Company which currently owns 53% of euronews' shares. Let's be clear: there is no proof of any wrongdoing as for now. But for a European channel which traditionally tries to present itself as a free, independent, pure voice of a united Europe, in
a time when Europe itself try to fight last tax havens, a mere suspicion of being linked to these methods of doing business is a big threat to our credibility. Moreover, the waste of money for a sumptuous party a few months before announcing the closure of the Ukrainian service and launching a social plan (PSE) doesn't either contribute to improving employees' expectations.
Nevertheless, the ultimate argument, the one which contributes the most to vanishing the trust of the newsroom in the management, is a drastic and continuous decline of our audience. We've suffered a fall of net income from +1.4 million € in 2010 to -7.7 million € in 2015. A loss of almost 10 million € in 5 years. Regarding the audience: 7 million of daily viewers in 2013 and just 3.5 million in 2015. We've lost half of our audience in just 3 years. Since the employees producing our TV and web-content (journalists and technicians) haven't changed until proven otherwise, then it must be the strategy indeed to be wrong.
Given this situation, a large part of the newsroom asked the unions to react in a stronger way towards the management. In the first general meeting (AG) held on 10th of October, much of participants agreed on organization of a vote of no confidence in euronews management. However, after the meeting we saw no answer and no action by the unions. At a second and a third meetings, open to all employees, the participants expressed similar requests. On 22th of November, at the last general meeting, the dialog with the unions' delegates was harsh. But finally, a raised-hand-vote decided, once again, to have a no confidence motion. Without the support of the unions. Therefore, this vote is finally a bottom-up initiative of the staff and it doesn't come from the unions. Consequently, it is organized in an independent way.
The vote will be held electronically. A personal e-mail has been asked to almost exhaustive number of employees to give everybody the chance of voting (yes/no/I don't know or I don't care) through a dedicated Internet platform (as it was done by i-Tele employees before us). The personal emails have been uploaded to a database that will send to all registered (people who have provided their personal emails) an e-mail with a personal code and a link to access the vote. The handling of the data is automatic and anonymous: no one of the persons involved in the process will be able to know your identity or your position towards the question that will be asked
during the no confidence vote. (do you have confidence in the current euronews management ?)
The personal mail is mostly like an electoral card. Once you have it, you do what you want. For now, the only answer from the management to our concerns has been a very threatening letter against FO, the only union that has decided not even to lead the movement but only to give some technical and logistical assistance. This attitude shows that the management prefers to deny that the critics are rising from the newsroom and not from the unions. In his last letter, The head of the Human Resources, Monsieur Des Arcis, also depicted our last general assembly as a “marginal” movement of “merely 30 persons”.
As a concluding thought, we believe that it is critically important to underline that no one in the newsroom and for sure nobody involved in the organization process of the vote has any kind of “revolutionary” desire. We are simply seeing very clearly that the management is bringing us to a dead end. And we just want to save a company that is also ours: euronews. Thus, stay tuned and check your mail inbox (including the spam) for further updates. We will establish a mailing list very soon to keep you informed of the details of the vote. |
This work is in the public domain |
